Although prison can present a critical opportunity to engage with offenders through interventions and programming, reoffending rates among those released from prison remain stubbornly high. Sport can be a means through which to engage with even the most challenging and complex individuals caught up in a cycle of offending and imprisonment, by offering an alternative means of excitement and risk taking to that gained through engaging in offending behaviour, or by providing an alternative social network and access to positive role models. This is the first book to explore the role of sport in prisons and its subsequent impact on rehabilitation and behavioural change. The book draws on research literature on the beneficial role of sport in community settings and on prison cultures and regimes, across disciplines including criminology, psychology, sociology and sport studies, as well as original qualitative and quantitative data gathered from research in prisons. It unpacks the meanings that prisoners and staff attach to sport participation and interventions in order to understand how to promote behavioural change through sport most effectively, while identifying and tackling the key emerging issues and challenges. Sport in Prison is essential reading for any advanced student, researcher, policy-maker or professional working in the criminal justice system with an interest in prisons, offending behaviour, rehabilitation, sport development, or the wider social significance of sport.

In the last decade there has been growing international concern about the increasing numbers of women in prison, the effects that imprisonment has on their children, the realisation that gaoled women have different criminal profiles and rehabilitative needs to male prisoners, and the seeming intractability of the associated problems. In response there has been an overarching policy concern in many countries to fashion and co-ordinate gender-specific policies towards female offenders which aim both to slow down the rate of their offending and/or imprisonment, and also to engender flexible programmes which will reduce the time spent in custody and/or away from their young children. The major objective of this book is to describe and analyse contemporary opportunities for, and barriers to, both the reduction of female prison populations and the reduction of the pain of those women who continue to be imprisoned. It assesses the most important recent attempts to reduce both women's imprisonment and the damage it does, identifying and analyzing cross-jurisdiction and gender-specific lessons to be learned, and the unexpected consequences of some of the reform strategies. This book brings together leading scholars and practitioners in the field, providing a critique of the reform initiatives which have taken place, and a much-needed theorization of cross-national policy in this area. It will be essential reading for all with an interest in prisons and prison reform.

In the last decade there has been growing international concern about the increasing numbers of women in prison, the effects that imprisonment has on their children, the realisation that gaoled women have different criminal profiles and rehabilitative needs to male prisoners, and the seeming intractability of the associated problems. In response there has been an overarching policy concern in many countries to fashion and co-ordinate gender-specific policies towards female offenders which aim both to slow down the rate of their offending and/or imprisonment, and also to engender flexible programmes which will reduce the time spent in custody and/or away from their young children. The major objective of this book is to describe and analyse contemporary opportunities for, and barriers to, both the reduction of female prison populations and the reduction of the pain of those women who continue to be imprisoned. It assesses the most important recent attempts to reduce both women's imprisonment and the damage it does, identifying and analyzing cross-jurisdiction and gender-specific lessons to be learned, and the unexpected consequences of some of the reform strategies. This book brings together leading scholars and practitioners in the field, providing a critique of the reform initiatives which have taken place, and a much-needed theorization of cross-national policy in this area. It will be essential reading for all with an interest in prisons and prison reform.

Although prison can present a critical opportunity to engage with offenders through interventions and programming, reoffending rates among those released from prison remain stubbornly high. Sport can be a means through which to engage with even the most challenging and complex individuals caught up in a cycle of offending and imprisonment, by offering an alternative means of excitement and risk taking to that gained through engaging in offending behaviour, or by providing an alternative social network and access to positive role models. This is the first book to explore the role of sport in prisons and its subsequent impact on rehabilitation and behavioural change. The book draws on research literature on the beneficial role of sport in community settings and on prison cultures and regimes, across disciplines including criminology, psychology, sociology and sport studies, as well as original qualitative and quantitative data gathered from research in prisons. It unpacks the meanings that prisoners and staff attach to sport participation and interventions in order to understand how to promote behavioural change through sport most effectively, while identifying and tackling the key emerging issues and challenges. Sport in Prison is essential reading for any advanced student, researcher, policy-maker or professional working in the criminal justice system with an interest in prisons, offending behaviour, rehabilitation, sport development, or the wider social significance of sport.